After having experienced some great South Indian food at Desi Dosa Madras when I was visiting Vancouver back in November, I was craving it when I returned to Calgary and was hoping to find a place here that serves good South Indian food. I found out that there are less than a handful of places that serve South Indian cuisine here in Calgary. One of them is Southern Spice, which is located in the far Northeast neighbourhood of Westwinds. During one lunch hour last month, I decided to trek across town with one of my coworkers to check it out.

I found out Southern Spice has daily specials. From Monday to Friday, they have a lunch buffet for $8.99. On Wednesdays and Thursdays, the Madras Masala Dosa is on special for $6. It happened to be a Thursday when I went for lunch. Since I’m not fan of buffets or food served from steam tables, I opted to try the Madras Masala Dosa ($6 on Wednesdays and Thursdays; otherwise regularly, $7.50), which was made fresh to order. This was actually my first time tasting a regular dosa. On previous occasions when I had tried South Indian cuisine in the Vancouver area (at Desi Dosa Madras and Madras Dosa House), I had the rava dosa, which is made with rava (semolina) flour and is stylistically different from the regular dosa. The regular dosa is made with a rice batter with black lentils and is similar in appearance to a French crepe whereas the rava dosa has more of a lattice/lacy appearance. This dosa at Southern Spice was well-made and fresh. The presentation was certainly impressive as the dosa was easily a foot wide and was hanging over the edges of the tray. The dosa itself was light and crispy and came with a flavourful filling of masala style potatoes. The Madras Masala Dosa was served with a side of sambar and two chutneys – a creamy coconut chutney and a tomato chutney. The sambar, which is a stew/soup containing lentils, pigeon peas (toor daal), and various vegetables such as onion, okra and carrots, was flavourful and well-seasoned.

Based on the dosa I tried on this visit, I was pretty impressed with Southern Spice and I look forward to going back to have the dosa again. On my next visit, I’m interested in trying out some of the other items as well. I noticed that Southern Spice also offer rava dosa as well as idli (steamed, soft rice and lentil flour cakes) and methu vada (Lightly spiced rice and flour donuts) on the menu so I’d be curious to check them out and see how their version compares to the ones that I had sampled in Vancouver previously.

4 Responses to Southern Spice – Calgary, AB

Hi miss foodie. I am an avid follower of your blog, and on a recent visit to Vancouver my wife and I had some great meals thanks to your recommendations. My question is, could you please recommend a great soup and sandwich place in Calgary, similar to meat and bread in vancity. Thanks a lot.

Hi Amir. Thanks for reading my blog. The place here that is most similar to Meat and Bread in Vancity is the Boxwood Cafe, located in Central Memorial Park in the Beltline area. Boxwood is owned by the same people as River Cafe. I’ve only been to Boxwood once for lunch and had their porchetta sandwich, which is one of their signature sandwiches. I thought it was ok but not as impressive as the version from Meat and Bread. I don’t remember it having as much crispy crackling as the one from Meat and Bread and that’s my favourite part of the sandwich. The prices at Boxwood are slightly higher than Meat & Bread but the food is similar in style.

Other sandwich shops that are on my list to try but I haven’t managed to yet include Caffe Mauro and the Holy Grill, both of which are in the Beltline area and located near MEC. When I do get to try them eventually, I will certainly post about my experience. These two places are a different style of sandwich shop as they do not offer items such as porchetta sandwiches. They offer more deli style sandwiches.

I checked out Southern Spice on Saturday night with my sister I’d told her about my dosa experience at Canada Dosa Corner, so she was eager to try one for herself. I decided to go to Southern Spice to try something new, as I’ve already gone to Canada Dosa Corner for dosas twice. She ended up getting one of the premium dosas that was stuffed with the potato madras masala, but also came with a side of paneer (kind of butter chicken style) with cashews. I had the spicy chicken dosa. She really enjoyed hers, and I thought the filling on both were very tasty. However, I didn’t like the dosa at Southern Spice as well as the dosa I had at Canada Dosa Corner in Forest Lawn. The dosa at CDC was much more crisp and flavourful, and I liked the chutneys and sambar better there as well.